We burst from the elevator onto the hospital’s third floor. Well, A.W. burst. I hobble-walked.
“Room three-seventeen,” he shouted at the group of startled hospital attendants gathered at the nurses’ station.
“Hold up,” one of the men said.
A.W. paused to show him his ID.
On the wall beside the elevator was an arrow pointing to rooms 301–321, and I limped in that direction.
A.W. was several paces behind as I rounded the corner. I was aware of visitors and patients in robes walking in the corridor, gawking at us, and people shouting. But I was focused on finding room 317.
It was on the left, near the end of the corridor, just off the stairwell. An empty chair was beside the closed door.
“We’re too late,” I said.
But as I pushed through the door, I realized that wasn’t the case.
Ted Parkhurst was standing beside Bettina’s bed, holding a pillow with both hands. “Billy?” he said, only mildly surprised. Considering the situation, he was way too cool for anyone but a true sociopath.
“Back away, Ted.” A.W. had joined us.
“I was just going to give her another pillow, make her more comfortable.”
I noticed with relief that the monitor near Bettina’s bed was registering regular heartbeats.
“What’s all this about, guys?” Ted asked, the picture of innocence.
“You’re in a no-visitor hospital room, beside an unconscious woman, holding a pillow you were going to use to suffocate her,” I said. “The best con man in the world couldn’t smooth-talk his way out of this.”
“I swear, Billy, I just—”
“Stop it, Ted. You’re caught. It’s over.”
A.W., gun drawn, moved past me. “Keep holding the pillow, Mr. Parkhurst, but turn around and face the wall, please, sir.” His words were almost a parody of politesse, but there was an angry edge to them that Ted obeyed. A.W. pressed his gun against the back of Ted’s head and reached past his shoulder to take the pillow from him. He tossed it on the empty bed against the far wall. Then he searched Ted and found a thin leather-covered object about six inches in length, with a loop strap on one end.
“Is that a blackjack?” I asked.
“A palm sap,” A.W. said. “Fits in your palm so people can’t see it, but when you slap somebody with it, they sure as heck feel it.”
“That must have been what the bastard used on Gin and me at Rudy’s apartment.”
Ted was looking at the object in A.W.’s hand in wonderment, as if he’d never laid eyes on it before. “Did you see that, Billy?” he said. “He tried to plant that on me.”
A.W. ignored the comment. “Mr. Parkhurst, please turn and exit the room slowly, sir.”
Ted offered no objection, just did as he was told.
I looked down at Bettina. Her head was wrapped in a neat white bandage. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Thank God.
I left the room to find a mildly disturbing tableaux—A.W. and Ted surrounded by a group of orderlies or possibly male nurses, bull necks and muscled arms protruding from their pale-green scrubs. Past them were female nurses and a few odd visitors and patients, all alarmed but also fascinated.
“This man’s got a gun and he’s crazy,” Ted was shouting. “He’s trying to kill me.”
“Drop the gun, bud,” one of the orderlies growled.
A.W. kept the gun right where it was, pointed at Ted. “I’m a security agent with InterTec,” he said. “This man—”
“He’s lying!” Ted shouted over him. “He’s a hired killer.”
“That’s the lie,” I said. “He’s the killer. The man with the gun is a security agent.”
The orderly who was the spokesman for his group gave me that “how do I know you?” look that never goes out of style.
Another of the men in scrubs said, “It’s the guy from the morning show.”
“What the devil is going on here?”
This came from a middle-aged dark-skinned woman in a crisp white uniform. The head nurse, was my guess. She marched through the others to park her wiry five-foot-five body in front of me.
“We just caught this man trying to harm our friend in three-seventeen,” I said. “Could you check to see if she’s okay?”
“I take my orders from doctors,” she snapped. She turned to A.W. “Mister, you got identification to go with that gun?”
A.W. used his free hand to find his wallet. Continuing to keep his eyes on Ted, he flipped the wallet open and held it in the direction of the nurse.
She glanced at it and said, “You can put it away. Where’s the fella from your company supposed to be guarding my patient?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” A.W. said. “I’m sure this man does, but he’s not talking.”
She gave Ted a disgusted look, then faced the assembled crowd. “You people have work to do, right?”
When the group started to disperse, she gave me a fierce glare, then moved past me into Bettina’s room.
Several orderlies remained, still unconvinced of who was lying about whom. But they didn’t object when A.W. ordered Ted to face the wall, extend his arms, and press his hands against it. Before obeying, Ted managed to brush his errant hair out of his eyes.
“I … I called the police,” a nurse at the rear of the group said.
Ted turned his head to me, his lank hair flopping down again. “You’re making a big mistake, Billy,” he said.
“Shut up, Ted.”
A red-faced young man, sweating profusely, entered from the stairwell and pushed through the crowd. He had a plump hand pressed against the back of his head.
“Where the hell have you been, Sistrom?” A.W. asked angrily.
“I … somebody called for help out on the stairs,” Sistrom said. “I went to see and … whammo. This the bastard who hit me?”
“He tried to kill Bettina,” A.W. said.
“Shit. Is she …?”
“She seems to be okay,” I said.
“Thank God,” Sistrom said. “Then you won’t have to make too big a deal about me leaving my post, right, A.W.? I mean, it sounded like somebody was real hurt. I had to go see, right?”
“You’re on your own on that,” A.W. said.
Ted was still staring at me. “I did nothing wrong,” he protested.
“Just for starters, attempted murder and assault,” I said.
“You’re nuts,” Ted said. “I came here to see how the lady was doing. Everything else is in your head, Blessing. I’m not even going to need a lawyer on this.”
I turned to the sound of footsteps hurrying our way. Lee Franchette, beautiful even while frowning. She strode past the still-curious nurses, then suddenly wheeled to face them. “I know some of you can’t wait to phone your favorite gossip hotline or blogger scum about what you’re seeing here tonight. Try it and I assure you you’ll be joining the growing unemployment line so fast it will make your heads swim. Be sure to pass the word.”
Then she turned her attention to us, mainly to Agent Sistrom, who still had his hand pressed to his head. “What’s your story?” she asked, in a way that suggested she wouldn’t buy it, whatever it was.
He was saved from having to explain himself by the head nurse exiting Bettina’s room and closing the door behind her. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said, “but the condition of the patient in that room is unchanged. From this moment, she is to remain undisturbed, pending the arrival of her doctor. Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course,” Lee said.
“It’s about time the police were notified,” the head nurse said.
“One of your nurses said they’re on the way,” I said.
“Good.” The little woman stared at me. “You know, you look a lot like that man who’s on TV in the morning. The one who’s always grinning like a hyena.”
“Ah, Nurse …” Lee said, studying the nameplate pinned above her right breast. “Nurse Cuttler, is there someplace we could wait for the police in privacy?”
“And who might you be?”
Lee slid a black leather ID case from her coat pocket. It had a tiny metallic Prada inverted triangle stuck into the leather that impressed the nurse about as much as a used bedpan. She seemed to find the information on the ID only slightly more impressive. “Miss Lee Franchette. Then you would be the lady I talked with on the phone, arranging for the guard over there with the red face.”
Lee nodded.
“Okay, I’ll show you to a room the interns use when they’re on call overnight. Then maybe my people”—she glared at the orderlies and nurses still lingering in the corridor—“can GET BACK TO WORK!”